SFFCK (Complete)

Chapter 20

He was so jittery that he even forgot to wipe away the lipstick mark on his neck. Xu Lian didn't remind him, and instead followed him back into the kitchen.

Opening the fridge, Xu Lian looked at Xiang ChangKong. He looked at its contents and said: "We can make three-color chicken with garlic shrimp and some vermicelli soup. Is that alright?"

(T/N: Three color chicken is 鸡肉炒三丁. I took some liberties when translating this. Basically, stir-fried chicken with cucumber and carrot [all diced], hence the 'three-color.' )

Xu Lian: "You're the chef, I'll listen to you."

"Alright. Then wash these first, I'll deal with the shrimp." Xiang ChangKong picked up a lotus root, some lettuce, and some carrots then handed them to Xu Lian. After this, he started to peel the shrimps.

Xu Lian doesn't really have much cooking experience, so she was somewhat nervous when she picked up the knife. But Xu Lian had fairly dexterous hands due to her job, and Xiang ChangKong gave her some helpful tips, so she managed to dice the carrots.

When she finished dicing the carrots, Xiang ChangKong was pretty much done peeling the shrimp. Taking the kitchen knife from Xu Lian, he said: "I'll cut the set of it, you can run some water through vermicelli and mix them up with some soy sauce."

"Alright." Xu Lian took out a big bowl and put the vermicelli noodles in it. When she turned around, she became overwhelmed by the exquisite technique Xiang ChangKong was displaying. "You cut so fast, aren't you afraid of accidentally cutting yourself?"

"Practice makes perfect." Xiang ChangKong replied. "I'm used to it."

"Ah..." Xu Lian went back to the noddles and turned on the faucet to fill the bowl with water. After a while, she drained the water and took out a bottle of soy sauce. "How much soy sauce do you want?"

"Just a little, don't pour too much."

Xu Lian thought about it, then asked: "Do I need a dropper?"

"..." Xiang ChangKong's hands that were cutting the vegetables stopped for a moment. "Dropper?"

Xu Lian nodded. "When I make my gypsum boards, I usually need to pay attention to the ratio of water and gypsum. When I need to use tiny amounts of water, I use droppers to control how much I put in."

Xiang ChangKong bit his bottom lip and said: "We don't need to be that precise in cooking. You can just eye-ball it."

"Alright." As Xu Lian opened the soy sauce, she couldn't help but taunt him a little: "But I can't cook ah. People always say words like small, little, or appropriate amount, but in the end, just how much does that mean?"

Xiang ChangKong smiled. "You have to get a feel of such things."

Xu Lian didn't answer and after staring at the bottle of soy sauce in her hand, poured a few drops into the noodles. "How's that? Is that enough?"

"Yes. You can pour some cooking wine into the shrimp, then mix it with some chopsticks."

"How much wine?"

Xiang ChangKong chuckled then said: "An appropriate amount."

Xu Lian: "...."

Xiang ChangKong finished cutting all vegetables and transferred them into a small bowl. He then chopped up a small clove of garlic, fried it until it turned into a golden color, then dropped in the shrimp Xu Lian had covered in wine. "OK, now we'll let it steam for ten minutes."

Xu Lian didn't expect cooking shrimp to be that simple. "What do we do now?"

"You can wash some onions and cut them into shreds." Xiang ChangKong said. "I'll fry the chicken while the shrimp is cooking."